Movies You’ve Only Just Watched

I just watched Peaky Blinders - the Immortal Man as advertised recently by Netflix and the past year and a half. Critic reviews came in from March 6th when it was shown in select cinemas. Reviews were 8/10 upwards and personally the reviews I read are always of that similar crowd who never do enough research of the TV universe itself to fully understand a piece of media. I can’t blame them I suppose but the actual opinion I’m seeing from fans who have watched the show as it was on TV over a decade ago on the BBC in 2013, the opinions are vastly different.

I won’t give specifics in case people on here happen to be into the movie, but I just felt that the movie was a giant placard advertisement for the upcoming seasons that Steven Knight and his production company intend to make. I have a lot of opinions on his writing which are all too long to talk about here, but yeah, the movie unfortunately I disagree a lot with when it comes to pacing and the narrative buildup of certain characters, especially new ones.

Legendary characters who have been in the show for years, even off screen ones, are not given enough fanfare and justice at all. They’re pushed aside because SK wants to make more seasons but the critical thing is you won’t garner any interest from people if you have cardboard 2D characters replacing legendary characters. They need time to build up!

5/10 was my review - the lighting and cinematography are the only redeeming factors in my opinion. As a day 1 fan of the show, I’m extremely disappointed, but not surprised because I’ve contended with disappointment over the writing of Peaky Blinders since S5.

4 Likes

Project Hail Mary

Based on the book with the same name by author Andy Weir, who wrote “The Martian”.

We follow Dr. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) as he finds himself in outer space on a mission to save the world. Most other aspects feel like spoilers.

What a fantastic movie. Clever, funny, dramatic, original, and reverent of science and scientists, which is always a plus for me.

Only real problem I have with it is run time, but I don’t really know what I would cut to be frank… maybe some of the Earth sequences. At times it felt unnecessary, like the party sequence. . I just started to really feel the run time by the 20-30 last minutes or so.

Soundtrack by Daniel Pemberton was good, but maybe one track felt a little too similar to “No Time For Caution” and it played during a sequence that felt kind of similar as well

Either way: Great movie.

7 Likes

I’m rather surprised by how well people are reacting to this movie. I haven’t seen it yet, and honestly was in no hurry to. Everything about it, from the premise to the cast to the trailer has “flop” written all over it, commercially and critically. I don’t know how it’s doing commercially, but critically it seems to be a banger for most who I’ve heard comment on it. Honestly was not expecting that.

4 Likes

Hey, me too! (replying to Kent, not Heisy)

Hail Mary was fantastic. From the physical sets, to the choral music, to the impressive puppeteering and just how this whole movie came together.

Looking up how the whole spaceship set was constructed (and even just planned out in advance) sounds like a filming nightmare! :laughing:

Wholly agreed. Go into this movie blind, folks. I sure did.

My dad is a big fan of the book, and listened to the audiobook twice. When the first teaser for the movie came out, he told me, okay, don’t look at the last 20 seconds, and don’t look at any other trailers, cause they’ll spoil one of the book’s biggest first reveals. So I didn’t!
I’ve avoided any and all trailers since that first one, and boy I think it paid off.
I also kinda forgot about much from that first teaser too, so it was wonderful to see the story unravel the way it did (and being just as in the dark as Grace was when he starts the film with amnesia. Wild!) So the reveal of there being an alien in this film was shocking to me.

(The first trailer, and only one that doesn’t totally give away the plot’s main crux past act 1).

My dad says the movie felt pretty darn accurate, just sped up scenes quite a bit.
(Such as in the beginning of the film, Grace disregards all automated prompts the Medical Bot gives him, while in the book he actually follows them and the opening takes much longer.)

Great mystery, nail-biting scenes, yet heartwarming moments too in this space movie! Well worth the price of admission! :grin:

PS: the costume department sold me on Grace being a fun school-teacher with the various goofy, punny math/science shirts he had packed for the space-trip! Every scene with a new shirt he had on made me giggle :smiling_face:

PPS: I was shocked to see this was a Phil Lord/Chris Miller film! This has a much different tone to either 22 Jump Street, Lego Movie, or the Spider-Verse films!

5 Likes

I really need to go watch it.
I was gifted the book for a birthday.

I remember reading (and loving) the Martian in uni back in 2012-13, and then discovering that a movie was being made through an xkcd comic, of all things.
Hollywood skipped Artemis, I get why.

Happy to hear that the Earth scenes are still there.
I hope the whole “getting all copyrighted / licensed software” bit is in.

Fist my bump.

3 Likes

There’s a moment in Project Hail Mary when they’re deciding on the computer voice for Rocky, and tries out this Meryl Streep voice briefly.
I was wondering if there’s a similar joke in other languages like getting a famous spanish or japanese celebrity there. While I haven’t found that out yet, I did find…

some of Dr. Grace’s school-kids in the Japanese version are VTubers. Lol

4 Likes

I took a leave from office today to watch this movie. Dhurandhar The Revenge

Damn it was 5 times more better than Part 1. And wanted to see the reviews and this gentleman summarised it perfectly -

Spoiler Alert though !!

Non Spoiler Review:

Agree that the soundtrack was next level. The director knew how to market it to older generation and younger generation - look how his team mixed an old timer with international underrated artists.

Original song:

2 Likes

I have watched Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie five times now, and I think that I can comfortably say that it’s become one of my favourite movies. It’s so fucking funny and inventive and so distinctively Canadian. They make brilliant use of unused footage from their old webseries and their dedication to getting such genuine reactions from people in public is commendable, it’s all as imressive as it is hilarious. It’s better to have watched at least some of the show first but it’s not essential.

It’s a 10/10, watch it as soon as you can.

4 Likes

I rewatched my favourite James Bond movie nearly after 15 years (may the 4th time).

Back to back action - Hovercrafts, North Korea Prison, Havana Hospital - Gene Therapy, Fencing at London, Underground Secret MI6 lab, Iceland Ice Hotel and final Airplane sequence. It was a beautifully crafted movie in year 2002.

It was Pierce Brosnan’s last Bond movie.

Best part was the invisible car - adaptive camouflage concept.

Die Another Day

2 Likes

I know it often gets panned but I loved Brosnan as 007. TND and Goldeneye were stellar entries.

7 Likes

Kind of interesting to see someone for whom this is their favorite. I remember kind of liking it when it was initially released, but currently I only like parts of it.

The intro is great for instance, including the Madonna song. I also think the sword fight was well put together.

Overall it just goes too ridiculous and almost “parody” for my likings. It’s as if it veered from something that felt almost like Timothy Dalton style bond with Goldeneye, to Roger Moore style Bond with this… which gives me a sense of whiplash.

Brosnan is my favorite Bond though, and I think all of his post Goldeneye movies (including this one) gets too much sh*t.

5 Likes

Dunno if you know this but Madonna is actually in that movie. She’s the fencing instructor!

3 Likes

Triangle of Sadness

Totally wild comedy about a bunch of hyper rich people on a small yacht vacation that goes terribly terribly wrong. It’s over the top and lots of fun. Worth your time!

5 Likes

We just saw Devil Wears Prada 2. It was lots of fun. Just like the first one Emily Blunt’s sass is the best part. Streep’s Miranda is still just chilling too. If you liked the first one at all then you’ll enjoy this one too.

4 Likes

On the plane ride to Japan I decided to see 007 No Time to Die, since why the heck not, I needed to kill 3 hours somehow.

It may not have been the best way to watch the film, and I’m not sure if Airplane Films typically have their audio mixes different than normal, but for me, most of the dialogue was clear but the music was unfortunately lost in the plane noise. (Though I didn’t have the audio turned all the way up)

And, sound quality aside, not sure if that would have changed my impression of the film much.
I quite enjoyed it, good performances by all, cool action scenes, but, man, maybe it’s because I’m not a big Bond watcher or detail-ravenous fan, but I found the movie confusing continuity-wise. :sweat_smile:

I’ve only seen the Daniel Craig movies and I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of them in theatres. Always at home after its run. And… I guess they always took a few years in between so, yeah, don’t remember too much about them. I did quite like Skyfall and the scrappy ending of that in the old boarding school I remember.

Anyway, No Time to Die.
Characters would appear like Jeffrey Wright’s character or Tanner, Bond would welcome them like an old friend, and I’m like, who? :sweat_smile:

I remembered Christoph Waltz’s character being the main baddie in Spectre at least! Forgot he was revealed as Bond’s lost brother? But uh yeah, that I remembered.

I was quite interested in seeing this film because Rami Malek played the big bad guy Bond had to take down. Love that actor.
But… I feel like he was really underused. Barely appeared until the last third of the film. I get there was the whole mystery with the nanobot infection plot, but I’d have liked to see his perspective a bit more throughout the film to keep his presence alive. He did a fine job but I wish he had more.

Léa Seydoux did a great job as the mysterious love interest to Bond. I need to look up the age difference though, I was kinda concerned with like, is this a weird age gap or something? Felt like it lol :grimacing::sweat_smile:

Fun film, but maybe I need to rewatch the bond films in a tighter schedule :sweat_smile:


On the plane to Australia just now I saw Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. I watched the first one once on a flight, so I figured why not the sequel? :joy:

It was alright. The first film was also alright, pretty cliche tropes and I thought the movie didn’t take itself seriously enough at times. Also there wasn’t even a “Five Nights Security” element to it, Mike just slept on the job the whole time lol

The sequel though remedies that! Mike DOES do a Five Nights little game at one point in the film, fun to see.

The plot is more ambitious and goes further with the supernatural spooks, the main thing being The Marionnette being the new evil force to defeat.
Thank god honestly. They had Matthew Lillard in a lot of the press junket marketing for the film, and I was worried they were gonna bring him back as the main baddie, but no, he’s just in flashbacks (for now) because he’s dead (for now).

The characters in this sequel are so stupid though, my god. Constantly just… not running away from the dangerous things (like that one ghost hunter who didn’t even try to escape the water, then died in the water wow good job)

Well, the girl who plays Abby I think has improved her acting chops, I found her quite likeable and charming this time around (in the first movie I thought she was kinda naïve and annoying.) Plus near the end of this film, she gets to do creepy posession stuff which really freaked me out tbh.

Everyone else though, oof. I mean, the opening of the movie: this one girl is freaking the hell out needing help and ZERO parents are concerned for her or this missing kid she’s trying to find?

Mike is really concerned for Abby until he’s told “she went on her own to see her friends” and he dismisses it so he can be an asshole to his girlfriend confiding in him (and trying to protect Abby too).

Abby’s teacher at school is an abusive piece of shit who got what was coming to him but also just… ugh… forcibly removing a student from an extra curricular activity list then also destroying their work when they show up anyway… how is he not fired.

The animatronics are really cool and well-made robots/suits, god damn great job Jim Henson Company. But what the hell how can they sneak up on so many people in this film when they’re constantly shown to have big clomping stomping feets lmao. Makes zero sense.
There were a couple of grisly kills in this one too, like damn.

I think the editing and cinematography were pretty cool though! The dream sequence with Vanessa had a lot of cool match cuts between her/child her.

2 Likes

ycnGJh

When you return, I’m going to have to give you a proper education on Bond.

I saw Mortal Kombat 2 in cinema. I’ve never played any of the games, but have seen a few videos talk about the lore, mainly Phelous’ hilarious Youtube reviews of the '90s live action TV series.

I thought it was fun, solid 3/5. Knows what it is, Karl Urban is great as he usually is.

But hey, what can I say?

That’s just my perception.

6 Likes

Obsession was incredible, rarely does a movie leave me feeling dumbstruck and numb. I won’t say anything else other than it has the most masterful use of Kids by Current Joys that will maybe ever be seen.

5 Likes

Hooray for Plane Wi-Fi.

I just finished watching Love Hurts. The action-comedy movie really banking its hype with Ke Huy Quan in the starring role, the adorably charming action-movie Oscar winner.

And oh my dear god I feel so bad for him, this was not a good movie. :tired_face: 3 or 4/10 for me.

There are glimmers of light in this darkness, but oh jeez, the script was terrible. The characters clichéd. The acting was poorly directed at times though I don’t think it was really the actors’ fault. The Valentine’s Day theming of the movie is cute, but feels like it was only there to glam-up what would otherwise be a generic rom-com.

The action scenes are the best parts of the film by far. It’s dynamic, punchy, very bloody and a little acrobatic at times. A treat to watch, though even some these scenes can suffer from feeling choreographed, as the fight editing lingers too long on one or two wind-ups and makes it feel fake.

If the script wasn’t so full of exposition-heavy dialogue “Oh hey boss, yeah you remember that chick who took all our money years ago and now you’re hunting her down, yeah why is that?” :roll_eyes:
This could have been a bit longer of a movie and had time to properly set-up and explore these characters deeper.

Just… god…

In terms of side characters not played by the wonderful Quan, I think Mustafa Shakir did a superb job as The Raven. His side-plot where he connects with the real estate agent because of his avant-garde poetry about killing was really sweet, plus he plays tall quiet and menacing really well.

And I will say, there is ONE good scene that I think is perfect in this movie, one single gold nugget that wowed me:

The scene involving Sean Astin’s character Cliff entering Marvin’s house only to find his brother menacingly waiting in there.
Now normally this is where they’d cut to the clichéd “evil gang lord brutally interrogating Cliff to find Marvin, while Cliff is exasperated about learning of this hidden side of Marv” but NO! Not that at all!

They both… have a civil but tense talk.
“Knuckles”, Marv’s brother slowly unravels the truth about Marv and everything he’s hidden from his “normal life”.
Cliff is taken aback a little, but is curious to know more. He wants to empathise with Knuckles about this mutual connection.
Alas, that won’t save him or Marv, and Cliff even knows this. “Now, I’m not naïve to think there’s anything I can say to get me out of this” before he goes on the defense. He says he believes in absolution, second chances, and how good of a man Marv is and how his hard work as a successful realtor is almost like “wanting to atone for something”.

It was a really poignant scene with a completely calm conversation that struck me as so surprising in this movie with wobbly comedy and crazy action. Sean Astin, you amazing treasure, expertly fucking done.

Oh yeah and the movie even tries to be John Wick at the end with the stylised motion-graphic subtitles for the Russian lines near the end of the film, which came out of nowhere. Ok movie. Sure. Sure. Hmm.

It was a great way to waste 80 minutes on this 4-hour flight, but damn I really wish I could say that it wasn’t. :cry: (I should have watched Zootopia 2 instead FUCK)

3 Likes

Just saw Mando + Grogu. It was clearly aimed at a younger target audience than the Mando TV series, but I enjoyed it. I LOVED that part of it takes place in Chicago… I mean Shakari.

Overall a fun film. I don’t want to give any spoilers.

4 Likes

Saw the Backrooms movie today. A really solid movie, especially if you’re a fan of Kane Pixels’ series. It does a great job conveying the liminal horror of the Backrooms, especially the sense of wrongness in the environments. Something I really liked was scenes in the real world were often filmed at unusual angles, like the Backrooms was seeping into everything.

It’s great as a supplement to the web series. It answers many questions, but also raises several more. I’m not sure how enjoyable it is as a movie if you aren’t familiar with Kane’s other work, like most of his videos it’s quite a slow burn before stuff really ramps up. The actors were all really great in it, especially Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. Just gives it a lot of weight having a lot more real actors and sets compared to the web series.

My only real complaint is I wish we saw more with A-Sync in the movie. Pretty solid, especially for Kane Parsons’ first time directing a proper film. I hope the events of the movie are referenced either in future web series videos or in Backrooms 2. Now though, I hope Kane can at least take a small break from Backrooms stuff to continue People Still Live Here!

2 Likes